Gemini
by Ala
Summary: It was a gaudy piece of jewelry Amane Bakura inherited from her mother-at least that's what she thought until the spirit awoke. Now, Amane must solve the secrets of the Millennium Ring before it destroys her and takes hold of her only brother. Shadeshipping. Amane x Thief Bakura
1. 01

The clod of earth scrunched in the palm of my hand was light and warm. It did not hold shape as a proper clod should have. Scrunch as I might with my tiny, pink hand, the flecks of dust simply sprung back upwards, crumbling apart and bouncing upwards between my little fingers, sticking under the nails.

Father would have said proper little girls didn't play with dirt, but it was okay today for some reason.

It needed water, I remember thinking. Even the prissiest of little girls knew that you needed water for a good mud pie, and I knew I needed water for a real, proper clod—it was very important to have a good one—but it hadn't rained in days.

The sun was shining in an obnoxiously cheerful way and not a single cloud was brave enough to cover the great glowing orb, nor even cower near to it. The sky, instead, was a remarkable shade of spring blue—one large bubbling field of forget-me-nots.

But the only flowers the ground held had been supplanted there. They had been chopped out of some farm or some happy glen, and were now slowly dying at our feet in the chilly March wind.

The wind did howl so. It was bitterly cold, even for March, and I had forgotten my jacket in all the fuss. Father wasn't used to reminding us yet; Ryou didn't have his either.

The hand he had wrapped around mine was a pale white, though I couldn't tell if it was from sheer force, the icy conditions, or if white was just the color his body chose to exude now. His hair fell in his face in long, glacial waterfalls, longer than even my own. It had once been a darker shade, that pretty sheen of blue we had inherited from our father, and I was getting used to the snowy shade of white still.

I, of course, had told him I thought it was hideously ugly every chance I got, but I had been young and disused to change and unaccustomed to the strange way the body responds to shock or fear.

I was naïve, in short terms.

Or maybe I had known the whole time. Maybe a small part of my heart, or the soul we shared, had always been able to feel the thin string tying the color of Ryou's hair to the casket hovering above the hole in the ground before us. Maybe this memory was what I had always hated.

Maybe I was just an awful sister.

"Amane, Ryou," came the begging order, unusually cracked in my father's quiet voice.

We stepped forward together, pale hand still clutched in pink hand.

We extended our arms together, like some inverted version of a three legged race, and what little bit of dirt I had left in my palm, slipped through my fingers to sprinkle lightly upon the heavy oaken lid of the casket before us. It bounced along the glossy, highly-polished sides, skidding down the arch of the lid, tumbling to inexorable darkness below. Soft clumps of it pooled in corners around the pretty gold decoration they had lain on the casket in lieu of flowers, trapped between the outer circle and the inner triangle, slowly covering the stylized eye in the center; closing her eyes for good.

"Mother's safe now," Father comforted in a rasp of a whisper, "Mother can't be hurt anymore. She's happy now. She's free."

But I didn't believe him. Nothing about this hole seemed free. Nothing about these faces seemed happy. Nothing about that awful white hair seemed safe.

Ryou had begun to cry.

I didn't look at him, but I had known, as I always did. I could feel his grief weighing down the heart in my chest as I desperately tried to pull the monstrosity above water. The sensation of sorrow confused me and frightened me and I released his hand as quickly as I could.

And it was gone.

And the emptiness felt so much better than that heavy, bursting emotion.

I shot Ryou an accusing look, one he took no note of, but Father did. He said nothing to me then, but would always carry the moment as the shining example: my scowl and my brother's frown looking so similar, but representing such stark and piercing opposition—two sides of one coin.

I don't know why I did it.

The hole was so abysmally dark and the sun was so unforgivingly bright and the wind had burst forth and then left like a vacuum. The world was frozen, slow-moving, unreal.

My little pink hand pushed outward, back toward the dirt little girls weren't meant to play with, down to the closed golden eye, and I grabbed hold of the cool metal. My tiny fingers wove their way between the ring and the triangle and pulled.

It didn't want to come with me. It wanted to be with Mother. It did not move.

My shiny black shoes skidded forward in the uneven ground around the hole—the hole my mother would call home for the rest of eternity—and a small hand gripped the back of my dress.

With a tremendous yank, Ryou jerked me backwards, falling onto his back. There would be green streaks on his white button up and dirt smeared all over the Sunday-best slacks. My fingers had entwined too closely with the hunk of gold already and in a twinkling cacophony, I ripped the gold ring backwards with me. The weighted points littered around the sides scraped long scratches into the lid of the coffin as we pulled away.

It had not been ready to let go.

I caught my footing better than Ryou, and had twisted one leg around the opposite direction before my father had enough wind to scream, "Amane Bakura!"

I ran.

I ran fast and hard, as if I had no need of air. I ran as if I had become the wind. The breeze ruffled my hair approvingly and jingled the ring in a comforting chime sound.

 _This_ was free, I had thought, not in that awful hole. _This_ was free.

And the ring clattered louder in agreement. The eye in the center sparkled happily against the sun's rays. I imagined the eye had promised to protect me from all of these evil spirits and strange people, like the dream catcher it so resembled. The metal was beginning to thrum with the warmth absorbed from my fingers. It felt nice. We sustained each other.

I skidded to the ground behind an old mausoleum, back to the wall, ring clutched to my chest like a teddy bear, the points seemed to clasp sideways against my chest like a returned hug.

 _Free. Safe._

I would not let it go.

To everyone watching, it had been a tragic display of mourning from a motherless child. Only Ryou could ever know the dangerous calm that had settled over me in that moment: the lock of sadness I possessed, the thrill of fear, and the trepidation my hummingbird heart pitter-pattered when I looked into that all-seeing, golden eye. Only Ryou could ever know the gravity of what I had done.

I'm told his tears were plentiful after I departed. I'm told he was inconsolable. I'm told he screamed bloody murder until he had to be taken away from the grave.

At the time, nobody thought it out of the ordinary, and that fine golden ring was a small price to pay to ease a little girl's suffering.

And why would they?

After all, we were only seven years old when we buried our mother.


	2. 02

I was sixteen years old the first time it happened.

Father was never a man to tend towards favorites, but after Mother's passing, he always favored Ryou. I suppose there were many reasons things might have turned out this way.

I still hadn't stepped up to the position of managing the household my mother had left vacant and my father pointedly ignored. It probably would have been the womanly thing to do to tidy things, and care for Ryou, and care for Father, and throw myself into being the perfect daughter to honor Mother's memory, but I could never bring myself to do it.

I was distant with Father myself, always finding some trouble to get myself into—a scrape here, a fight there—rather than occupy the house. And I always found reason to be cruel with Ryou when we were in front of Father, just because I knew how it irritated him.

Sometimes, though, I think he just plain didn't like looking at me. I'd catch him staring from the corner of his eye with a look of sadness and apprehension. Days would pass and I would decide he didn't like the Ring, and I'd tuck the ever present pendulum under my shirt. More days would pass and I would decide he didn't like me again. Maybe I looked too much like Mother, where Ryou had been bleached clean. Maybe I just looked disappointing.

No matter the reason, Father quickly found excuses to make himself busy elsewhere. Important digs would surface that he needed to visit or he might very urgently need to fly overseas to negotiate an exhibit on lend from another museum. The point stood: what had once been a very tedious desk job now required a minimum six months of travel yearly.

Ryou had been deemed responsible enough for both of us and we had become used to being the only people left in the house.

It was difficult for us both, but Ryou always fared better. Ryou had learned to curb his bad temper and exercise all the impeccable manners that kept him in the good graces of not only our schoolmates, but the adults as well. I, on the other hand, had learned to fight, and run, and climb, and take utmost pleasure in the solitude of just myself, the grass, and the sky. The further isolated I had become, the less being around other people seemed to make me happy.

I took great comfort in the Ring that had belonged to my mother. The chiming of the points jingling along the sides never ceased to soothe me and, although a great deal of bad luck still found me, I thought the ancient eye of the necklace, probably warded the worst of it away.

It never quite felt like she was still there with me, but it never felt like being alone either.

It was companionable, I decided.

But Ryou and I were growing up. We were growing older and, while we still were bonded as close as the day we had been born, we were beginning to drift apart in the sea that was adolescence. Although, he was mere minutes older, Ryou had fallen very starkly into the role of _older brother_ and it made him seem unapproachable and parental.

In short, I was moody, and lonesome, and feeling particularly unloved, as all teenage girls do at one point in time or another, and the easiest distraction I had learned was 25 miles away in Domino City, Japan.

Domino had become something of a Mecca for the trendy card game Duel Monsters, and while I had never set my mind to learning how to play, the cards were small, portable, and easy to flip for a pretty penny—provided you knew what you were looking for. A bump here, a flirtatious smile there, and most teenage boys never noticed they were without their decks until they made it back home.

I had ditched Ryou at the subway station on the way to class, hanging back behind a group of blue-coated schoolgirls until he had turned the corner towards the red line boarding station and casually turned the opposite direction towards the boarding platform for Domino, slipping my own uniform jacket off of my shoulders as I walked. The plain color of our uniforms, while recognizable close to home, looked somewhat ordinary in Domino and were less likely to attract attention.

It was not my first rodeo.

It was more than an hour of riding and stopping and transferring, but it was better than pre-calculous by any stretch of the imagination, so I tucked myself into a corner between an irritable-looking business man and a man who may well have been homeless, but for the moment was only sleeping.

And there I sat, thinking and fidgeting and pawing at the gold ring dangling at my chest for comfort.

As time wore on, fewer riders began to board and more riders departed, schoolchildren bustled off for fear of being tardy, professionals hurried off to important meetings with briefcases in hand. Travel hours seemed to very strictly end after the 9 A.M. business day had begun. Soon it was only my drowsy companion and I, lazing about the car, waiting for something noteworthy to happen.

The bum appeared to be stirring, maybe a bit hungover, maybe just a bit beat-down in general. He stared at me with glassy eyes, seeming disoriented and dangerous all at once.

My heart began to pound, reverberating against the Ring resting there. Abruptly, the thought entered my head: _Get off of the car._

It wasn't a feeling of dread or unease. It wasn't necessarily even a concern I would have applied words to. The thought felt foreign and strange, even though it aligned with my apprehensions. It only served to disarm me more.

 _Get off of the car,_ I couldn't help thinking again.

And suddenly I was left with the sinking realization that it was too late. It was too late to get off the train and it was too late to run.

The man was rising now, tottering as the car shook along the track, reaching up to grasp at the hand holds dangling from the ceiling, and as the lights flickered and faded through the subway tunnel, he seemed to jump forward rather than walk. It was as if every time I blinked, he had simply transported his body a few feet closer without ever taking a step.

"That's an awful big hunk of gold," he thought aloud, appearing just a few feet from me, "for such a tiny neck."

The lights flickered one final time. It was only just long enough for me to meet his eyes.

And I screamed.

And he lunged.

I remember very clearly the feeling of his hand at my chest. I remember the ripping way his fingers clawed at me. I remember the painful jerk of my head snapping back and only the force of the cord wrapped in his hand had kept me upright.

But when I fell backwards, the whole of my weight resting on the cord, his hand had slid down the taught leather and only the very tips of his ungloved fingers touched the outer gold circle of the Ring.

They touched them only just for a second.

And I felt the heart-sinking fear of falling backwards into sleep, but never actually landing in the abyss of dreams. I only felt the falling.

And as my body lurched upward, seeking for a handhold, looking for a savior, I saw a flash of white. It was the sort of dead shade of white that adorned Ryou's head, blurred into a streak of bronze.

A deep, rumbling voice filled my head, and my chest, and my stomach. It reverberated from outside and within me. It laughed in loud, echoing guffaws, and it said, " _Oh, little thief,_ _do you hear me now?_ "


	3. 03

I'm not sure when I reached the bottom.

I'm not sure _how_ I reached the bottom.

The sensation of falling had been just that: a sensation. It was an internal feeling of stomach flips, and light headedness, and fear. There had been no wind to whip through my hair. There had been no walls to scrape at my arms. There had been no ground to dash my skull against.

But there was now.

I could see the light of the world above, shining down in a mockingly cheery way, leaving only small amounts of shadows in the large pit I found myself in. Roots popped out from the walls of the tunnel, looking like brittle pieces of vein. I could see grass near the top, and when I stood I could reach just high enough to touch the ground and grasp the cool blades between my fingertips.

It took a few tries to claw out. The dirt was soft and spongey. It tended to give way more than pack down when I jammed a sneaker or a hand into it, and I tumbled back to the bottom more than once.

It was really pretty obvious, but I didn't fully realize it until the wind broke against my face.

I spun around as I pulled myself up into the world, sitting on the edge of the opening with my feet still dangling inside. It was a fairly large rectangle cut into the ground. The grass went on for miles uninterrupted, peppered with little bunches of blue forget-me-nots. Only this perfectly measured bed of grass had been marred by a shovel.

There wasn't a stone. If there was, I'm not sure if my name would have been on it or hers, but the realization held a horror I couldn't quite feel. My chest tightened and squeezed, but my heart wouldn't _pang_ the way it was supposed to.

I was sitting half inside of a grave.

Speedily, I pulled my legs up and scuttled backwards, wanting to scream but not finding the breath. My fingers clawed, ripping patches of grass up by the roots in my haste to retreat, until a strange thing happened—until there was no grass left at all.

There was a definitive change in the air where my right hand rested, as though suddenly I could feel the warmth of the sun. My fingers sunk deeply into the ground, covered in the heat, and when I pulled away I could feel the sand slip between my bare fingers.

My heart finally _pang_ ed and I jumped to my feet.

A stark line broke across the horizon behind me and a second sun was shining brilliantly across a golden desert backdrop. Stone ruins crumpled in the distance, whole buildings leaning sideways against cliff-faces carved into the base of an enormous mountain. The wind blew and little grains of sand whipped into the grass I occupied, but only so far. It was as though the wind was hitting water. It could push and it could ripple, but there was a point where the density of this second landscape was too much, and the gusts simply burst backwards, dissipating into my side of the world.

A set of footprints approached the dividing line and then angled off backwards towards the ruined city, as if someone had come to see the strange spectacle, but had not been able to pass.

I tentatively stuck my hand back out, to hover over the sand.

The wind howled in anger and beat against the invisible wall, whipping my hair and tearing at my clothes, but never quite reaching the tips of my fingers.

Slowly, I added a foot. My sneaker sunk down into the sand on top of a footprint. I thought, only for the briefest of moments, that the bum had strangled me so quickly I didn't know I had already died. Perhaps the desert was to be my personal little Hell—it was supposed to be hot, right?

I didn't know. I didn't especially care. Decisions are much simpler to make once you're already dead.

With an enormous push and a pop in my ears, I stepped forward to the other side.

The sky behind me suddenly seemed a shade darker than it had before, as if I were trying to look at it through tinted glass. I was left with the impression that now I was _outside_ looking _in._ The heat that had seemed so inviting while standing in the cold wind had now turned oppressive and stifling. The sand was already pouring over the tops of my heels.

I looked at the grave forlornly, one last time, and then pointed myself in the direction the footprints had left by.

Someone, at least, was dead with me.

I carried onward through the sloping dunes. The stale air preserved the footprints as well as I could have hoped, and they marched straight to the center of the ruined city. I stopped dead in the sand, my toes barely touching the long shadow cast by the first building. The footprints trailed inside, into the darkness created by the craggy mountainside surrounding the ruins.

The level of quiet was alarming. There was no screech of birds, no rustle of wind, no white noise hum. There only existed the nervous shaking of my own breathing and the pulse of my own heart sounding loudly in my ears. I stood here in this panic for what seemed like hours, waiting for a sign that never came.

There was really only one option; I steeled myself and, again, began to step forward.

I didn't need to go very far. It was the fourth hovel on the left, caved in sideways to boast a rather large skylight. What was left of the building rested at the top a series of crude steps that abruptly ended the trail of footprints. But, as I approached in cautious side-steps, I found myself in front of a swatch of faded pinkish fabric that separated this building from the rest.

It had been draped, like a door, in the front of the house. The threads at the bottom of the cloth were tattered and worn from years of scraping against the stone floor and the path that led to the cloth was so much more well-worn than the other collapsed buildings.

I was struck with the realization that somebody _lived_ here. Somebody occupied this space all the time. This wasn't a temporary plane of being or some poorly imagined limbo, somebody survived in this space.

I thought about announcing myself for a moment, or knocking, but I couldn't find the sense in rapping against stone or cloth, so I carefully peeled the linen aside and stepped in.

I had entered a museum exhibit, I couldn't help but think as I walked into the room. Finely carved and painted chairs inlaid with gold cluttered the room obnoxiously. Set against the drab backdrop of muddy stone, they looked ridiculously out of place. Some sort of bench-like bed was tucked into a corner, topped with sad-looking threadbare cushions that had not survived the years as well as their wooden counterparts. A series of scrolls lay in a tangled heap near the bed, not particularly well-wound, organized, or cared for, and a pile of awkward looking gold trinkets set beyond that. A flash of teeth and jawbone smiled out from beneath the treasure.

My eyes swept back and forth, trying to resend the images to my brain, get some sort of validation from the useless organ, but my poor mind could offer none.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard the voice behind me.

"Problem solved," it preened.

It was the same voice that had spoken before—the one that had laughed, and mocked, and prodded. It seemed smaller now. It was as if I had stepped outside from some crowded place and everything was now clearer and closer. I heard the Ring jingle and clasped desperately at it for some sort of protection, some normalcy, but, to my horror, it was not there.

My hand patted for a second before I looked down to find dull, white buttons and no trace of the gold medallion.

I caught a flash of red sleeve as the makeshift door swished closed behind it and rolled my eyes upward to catch that familiar shocked shade of white.

The gold baubles draped around him continued to sway after he had stopped, chiming in the sound I had mistaken for the Ring. At the end of the red sleeve, a hand rested triumphantly on his hip, offsetting the supremely arrogant posture he had assumed.

The man was bronze-skinned and bare-chested and totally not in form of dress for polite subway travel. Gold trinkets adorned every surface of his body he could find to hang them from—clasped at the wrists, wrapped around the ankles of his sandaled feet, strewn over his neck and shoulders—and they glittered as charmingly as his smile.

A shark-like smirk ripped its way from the corner of his mouth. It might have been attractive, if not for the predatory glint in his dark eyes. The aura of danger was summed neatly in the cross-hatched scar that ran over his right eye. It carved through the flesh of his face like a river through a valley, and I shuddered at the thought of how deep the wound must have been to leave this memento.

I must have gawked for quite some time, but it hadn't occurred to me until he began to speak again. I was filled with the need to ask him something, though I couldn't decide what. Maybe his name. Maybe where we were. Maybe just to tell him that I _had_ heard him.

It didn't matter. There was no time.

He stuck his hand out inches from my face and the smirk widened for just half a second. The smile held only just long enough to look happy, and boyish, and excited, but then his lips pulled back and he whispered with a grin of a snarl, "But no one is driving."

He flicked me in the dead center of the forehead.

Fucking hard, too.

And as I willed my body to lunge forward, my mind knocked itself backwards, and again I felt the panicked, falling sensation of the spirit traversing the body.


	4. 04

My cheek was resting against the cool steel of a standing bar, my body slumped on the gritty subway floor. As I pulled away, I wondered if it had left a mark behind—if maybe a familiar looking set of lines had temporarily etched themselves over my eye—but quickly dropped the issue when my eyes finally dropped to the floor.

My hands were braced there, ready to heave myself up, but they were warm and sticky, dragging little pieces of dirt and dust with them as they scraped along the ground.

They were red.

They were wet.

The color was soaking itself into the edges of my white sleeves and I immediately held them out from my body, like a toddler covered in paint, waiting for an adult to come and clean me up.

No one came.

A trail of puddles, arranged in decreasing sizes, mapped its way to me from the other side of the train car.

We were above ground now and the light shone brightly through the car windows, illuminating the streaks and the prone figure propped against the farthest emergency exit.

The man might have been sleeping. His head was lolled forward onto his chest and his dark, shabby clothes did much to cover the deep red draining down his chest, but didn't do much for the gaping hole where snapped pieces of bone stuck out.

His hands were laying uselessly at his sides, open palmed and face up. Resting in his right hand was a mass of red pulp. I stared at it confused for a moment, while my groggy mind did the math.

 _2+2=_

"Four," I said aloud, not sure who I was talking to.

It was his heart.

Someone had ripped this man's heart straight out of his chest.

A wave of panic overtook me. My body was finally catching up to the news my brain had just announced. Adrenaline pumped through my veins like cars winding around a racetrack, each engine roaring the alarm, crashing carelessly into dead ends; my hands began to shake.

His hands were still warm, I noticed, as I crouched before him. Our fingers touched only briefly as my hand _squished_ closed around the organ.

This was recent. This had happened minutes, seconds ago.

But I had been gone so long.

 _And what are you going to do with that?_

I frowned, looking down at the mass of raw muscle, not really sure. The shivering in my hands was growing, quaking its way all the way up my arms now, splattering more little droplets on the floor.

Undo it, undo it, undo it, I thought.

And I jammed it right back into the hole in his chest. I grabbed the collar of either side of his dripping wet coat and pulled it tightly around him to cover the wound. I felt like a mother sending a child out to play. "Button up," I chided nervously, crazily.

The laughter was ringing in my head.

I carefully tottered to my feet, doing my best not to touch anything, and pulled my hands into the dirty white sleeves as if I were hiding them from the cold. I scraped my fingers against the inside of the shirt, wiping them as best I could, before sticking them back out and setting to work on rolling the sleeves high enough to cover the stain.

I needed to leave. I needed to leave now.

" _Next stop, Domino Station,_ " the electronic conductor supplied, and I looked up at the speaker as if I could see the voice.

The train, that had been rocketing forward full speed, came to an abrupt stop. I couldn't bring myself to look back at the flopping, squelch, the force of the brakes pulling me forward as well. I hooked a steel bar with my right elbow, too afraid to touch anything, and wrapped my left hand around the Ring. The pendant rattled in tinkling chimes, keeping time with my unsteady nerves. It was soothing to a certain point, like holding a parent's hand while crossing the road.

 _I was helping_ , the voice pointed out condescendingly.

I decided not to answer it.

The doors opened with a mechanical _whoosh_ , and my feet calmly, deliberately, stepped forward onto the platform. Their gait matched the chiming of the Ring. It didn't matter where they went. They just needed to _go._

And go they went.

I walked quite a distance from the subway station, jaw locked closed, fists clenched tight.

He chimed childishly the whole time, _I was only fulfilling_ your _wish,_ perhaps imagining himself powerful, _What would have become of you if not for me,_ or threatening, _I will not be ignored_.

He would though, I reasoned.

 _I would not._

He would.

My shaking had ebbed a bit by now, the pressure transferred as now all my muscles pulled taught instead, winding into uncomfortable knots in my back and shoulders. My teeth ground together angrily as I glanced from side to side, crossing the street.

I knew I needed damage control, and fast, and some mocking piece of Jungian bullshit dream or episode or hallucination was not going to be the thing keeping me from staying out of the cop-shop today.

The tension in my shoulders dropped a little as I reached the opposite side of the road, enjoying the first moment of quiet and solitude I hadn't realized I was missing.

I deftly maneuvered around pedestrians—weaving through ropes of children holding hands of other children holding hands, dodging carelessly swung briefcases, edging around old men and women hobbling forward on canes. I turned right down the first alleyway I saw and in one rage-powered yank, ripped the left sleeve off of my shirt. The fabric fell to the ground in a muddy wad of white and pink, greeted by an abandoned mate a few steps later.

I turned left out of the alleyway without missing a beat. I continued to pace forward, dodging a small café terrace. My eyes never moved away from the logo ahead of me as my left hand swooped down and grabbed the collar of a jacket thrown absently over the terrace gate. I crossed the street again, throwing an arm into the pink blazer as I walked. The bow was a bit off. Hurriedly, my fingers itched at the loose knot around my throat and rewound the fabric haphazardly into my hair.

The uniform was missing a few pieces, but if no one peered too closely I would just look like a local student.

There were some young people crowded around a large statue in the distance. Some were taking souvenir photos. Some seemed to be playing rounds of cards. Others sat patiently as if they were waiting for a turn or an invitation.

The figure was carved out of white marble and was blazing in the sunlight. It had carefully placed pointed teeth, bursting out of a gaping maw, somewhat reminiscent of a shark. Its wings stretched outwards, tips retracted only just slightly, looking as if it was gaining balance to take flight.

It was the Blue Eyes White Dragon statue that adorned the outside of every Kaiba Corp. owned piece of property, and this location had a duel system.

An _expensive_ duel system.

And only diehards that had sunk their bank accounts into pieces of cardboard were going to pay the rental fee to use this thing. That had been the original destination and, still, I had been delivered. It might yet prove to be a fine, fun-filled, full-fledged distraction from my caving sanity.

 _To what end?_

"Well," I muttered moodily to myself, "it's not like I can get back on the subway and go home."

The tassels of the ring settled.

The chiming stopped.


	5. 05

The benches were tempting.

It would have been easier, maybe even safer, to have tucked myself into a corner until a good amount of time passed. Then I could double back to the subway and run home with my tail tucked between my legs.

But I knew if I let go now, I might never get the reigns back. And if I wasn't already losing my mind, I was well on my way to getting there.

I had to be either crazy or a murderer; neither option seemed great.

I quickly scanned the room and quickly made an assessment.

There was only room for one large arena set in the makeshift-looking stadium. The plastic protecting the edges of the holographic field was painted half blue and half red like an oversized magnet. On the far right, a large blonde man with a ridiculous pair of sunglasses stood with arms folded across his chest. A fan of cards stuck out from underneath one elbow. Although I couldn't see his eyes, his posture left me with the impression he had grown impossibly bored with this game.

Across from him, a line of motley contenders waited for their turn at the platform, a schoolboy of no more than twelve taking a nervous lead, deck in hand. While most appeared to be under drinking age, a few older-looking characters had found a place as well.

The whole event had the feel of an autograph signing for a washed-up athlete. The blonde man clearly had better places to be, but his disheveled appearance belied a certain lack of funding. I didn't know much about Duel Monsters, but even I could count Kaiba at the top. Maybe this was some conquered opponent? Perhaps Kaiba was flaunting his Triumph like a Caesar.

It sounded like the sort of thing he would do.

A group of girls in familiar pink jackets were forming a cheering squad around the strange American-themed bad-boy. I couldn't see the appeal, myself, but I did appreciate the cocky enjoyment he seemed to obtain from the young women.

It made him an easy target.

And easy targets were nice.

But I glanced down to the sleeves of my blazer. The stolen coat might fail me if I got too close to the girls. Their complete uniforms might make mine seem suspect. My skirt was half a shade too dark and the jacket didn't fit me very well. Its bulk aptly hid the flashy Ring well, but made the outfit seem awkward.

Furthermore, the girls might expect that they should know a fellow schoolmate, and I was certain none of them would vouch for me.

Reluctantly, I slunk towards the line.

I re-evaluated the line quietly, toying with the idea of actually stealing candy from babies. I had originally intended to come here to pick myself up a quick buck. It wouldn't have been a whole lot, but at least enough to entertain me for a few hours before Ryou would expect his troublesome sister home.

I frowned.

A lot had happened between here and there.

 _Who knew if she would return at all?_

My heart didn't miss any beats, but there was a kick in my chest when their tempo so suddenly slowed, my blood running cold. I tried not to glance over my shoulder, knowing I'd find no one there. I'd never know if I'd really heard anything either way.

I felt as if I were perpetually coming down, riding the waves of some terrible, ebbing hallucination.

It would take some getting used to.

There was a faint jingle somewhere under my jacket. I pushed a hand to my abdomen, trying to steady it and gasped in alarm at what I felt.

"You okay, miss?" someone was asking from the line.

The spiked tassels of the rings were standing up between my fingers. They were pointing obscenely, pushing out the front of my coat, sticking out of the fabric between the buttons. My breathing stopped as I frantically tried to smooth them down, but the more I pressed, the more they pushed. They rolled out of my grasp and returned to their pull like magnets, straining with continual energy to be reunited to the opposite side. I threw my other arm over my stomach, trying to shade the phenomenon.

The boy in the line stepped forward, back into my window of detection. He held one foot over the border, dragging a leg behind him, still in the line. He appeared to be weighing how badly I need help with how long he had been in that line. The result was a warped version of the hokey-pokey.

I straightened and tried to smile. I tried to look normal.

 _And failed._

And failed.

The Ring seemed to be pointing straight at this stranger and nothing was going to dissuade it. I petted and soothed and pleaded so quietly, but it simply continued to point impetuously.

The boy's teeth were clenched together, eyes darting back and forth between my arms and the rapidly approaching platform, still observing. Long, blonde hair shook in his eyes as his head swiveled to and fro. He pushed forward, as if to move towards me, and I opened my mouth in horror, to say something, _anything,_ to ward this stranger off.

Nothing came to mind.

He broke ranks and began towards me. As he edged his way through the line, trying to push in my direction, I noticed for the first time he had a companion. The little boy was a blur of blue uniform and backpack as he turned towards me, realizing his friend's attention was elsewhere and wondering what had captured it.

His hair was outrageous, as was the bit of outfit he had stuffed under the school jacket. His eyes, though, were wide and wise. There was a simple truth in them that frightened me, which was not proving to be a difficult task this day.

He found me instantly.

And as we stared at each other, something heavy settled over my shoulders, weighing down on my spirit. It was very clear for a moment that we both _knew_ , but could not _understand_.

The voice boomed in my head, but contained itself above my mouth. The tone echoed in my head dangerously, but was unable to reverberate down through the rest of my body.

 _"Look here, little thief,"_ it ordered in obvious astonishment. " _What_ have _you found?"_

I didn't know. I didn't intend to find out.

Whatever was pulling the Ring from my chest felt as though it was also pulling that voice into my body, and I couldn't have it.

I couldn't decide whether to hold the Ring or my head. I could feel the dizziness pushing nauseatingly from within me. There wasn't much time. The blonde was approaching, reaching out towards me. The boy with the strange hair had taken a small step forward, maybe just to see, maybe feeling the same strange pull.

I spun on my heel and swiftly ran away.

A tension in my head responded to this in a deafening way that sounded like it might have been words if I had been capable of hearing. I ignored it. I would have to ignore it. And I pushed onward.

I didn't know. I reassured myself. I _was not_ going to find out.

 _Not today._

The threat resonated in my skull. 


	6. 06

The light behind the red, glowing exit sign hit me in the face like a punch. I hadn't been prepared for the stark difference between the weak warehouse-esque lighting of the arena and the unrestricted power of the actual sun. I flinched backwards and put a hand over my face defensively, trying to ward away the attacking rays, temporarily blinded.

"Heh," a voice sounded somewhere to my right. "Funny running into you here."

I jumped. I was not prepared to deal with any more voices today.

The storm was still raging in my head, I soothed myself, which meant that whatever bout of crazy I was having was still going on _inside_ , and this new voice had come from _outside_ , and it was _safe_ as long as I minded my tongue. The pressure in my head hadn't diminished, but my body was growing weary with its own pain response and, much like a child that had been left to cry themselves out, my nerves were beginning to quiet their screaming.

So, the storm could rage all it wanted _;_ I had managed to shut the window.

"I saw you inside; you don't exactly look like part of the Duel Monsters crowd," the voice—the man, I corrected—explained somewhere to my right. I couldn't decide if his tone was matter-of-fact or insulting.

It didn't matter, I suppose. I'd been the rude one, ignoring him this long.

"You're not supposed to be back here, either," he barked, sounding gruff, but still mostly nonthreatening.

I muttered a meek, "Sorry," in the manner I'd learned from Ryou, hoping to appear vulnerable enough to gain some sort of social green-card for the moment. I didn't have to fake very hard. "I, uh…" I trailed off looking over at the man for the first time since bursting through the emergency exit, totally unaware of what response to offer.

The man was leaning backwards against the brick wall of the building, hands shoved in his pockets, and a cigarette dangling from his lips. There was an air of arrogance he exuded that he didn't quiet seem entitled to. His dark sunglasses slipped down his nose as he watched me fumble, revealing baby blue eyes that hammered home his foreign appearance even more than the flag on top of his head.

"I just," I tried again, but thought better of it. My hands were still shaking a bit, smoothing down the Ring under my coat. Its temper tantrum seemed to have finally subsided, and I laughed a little bit at the silly image I must have been projecting. My only saving grace was this man probably thought I was just another one of these weird natives.

He looked at me like he did, anyway.

I pulled my hands away from my abdomen and instead ran them nervously through my hair. "It's just been a day," I admitted, honestly. It had been.

I glanced up. He didn't wasn't convinced, but looked like he wanted to be.

"Could I bum a smoke?" I asked with a small smile.

He seemed a little surprised for a moment and then reached into his vest pocket for the little box of death-sticks. I smirked quietly to myself. He looked like a Marlboro Man.

"Thanks," I nodded, taking the paper tube and the zippo from his offering hands. I cupped my hands around my face to protect the flame and did my best not to choke on the first drag. This wasn't really a habit of mine.

But some sort of weird, universal smoker-karma had softened the situation now. It was a tiny defense I had learned in my early teens, and I needed every point I could get today.

"Keith Howard," he offered, crushing my hand in an over-powered shake as I tried to return his lighter. "Don't s'pose you knew that?"

 _I'm kind of a big deal,_ hung, unspoken between us.

I shook my head _no,_ but offered the name, "Amane," and threw in a "Charmed," for good measure.

Keith tilted his head backward to rest against the wall again, pushing his glasses back up to shade his eyes. "So what are you doing at a Duel Monsters arena if you don't even know who the Intercontinental Champion is?" he artfully name-dropped.

I huffed out a sigh, half considering telling this stranger the less then savory truth, that I had come here to swipe cards. He didn't really seem to be the judgmental type, but I wasn't quite that far gone yet, and furthermore, the thieving plans had gotten a little side-tracked. "I don't even know," I admitted.

His mouth turned down, unconvinced.

"I was cutting class," I whispered conspiratorially, "to come downtown, but I got mugged on the subway." It wasn't _untrue_ , but I quickly jumped over what had become of the mugger. "I don't have any money to get back home." _That_ was untrue, but the subway was seeming less and less a viable option as time went on. The next lie came easily, "I thought I might find someone here I knew who could help me. It's a popular place, I guess."

"You _guess_ ," he rolled his eyes, shaking his head at what he assumed was my stupidity. "Why didn't you just go to the cops?"

"I cut class," I returned.

He looked unimpressed with this. "You people are so backwards."

I pointedly ignored the insult.

"Well, come on, I guess," he ordered, dropping the butt of his cigarette and smothering it under his rather large boot.

"What?" I asked, confusedly.

"Come on," he snapped again, "before I change my mind."

"Change your mind about what?" This wasn't getting any easier.

"Driving you home." The condescendingly flirtatious tone paused for a bout of anger; "I've had about enough of Kaiba's bullshit for one day, anyway."

He hadn't turned around and couldn't see the shocked look on my face, but I'm sure he must have heard my jaw hit the ground.

"Driving me what?" I was struggling to do the math again. "You brought a car here?" The man was foreign and while he didn't quite give the impression of a tourist, he definitely was not in the area to stay.

"And a gun," he chimed sarcastically, still walking down the sidewalk. "I'm American."

I looked around to make sure no one had heard him, not quite sure if he was joking. He didn't appear to care either way and was already busy pawing at the door of a strange looking vehicle on the side of the road.

The hunk of steel looked supremely out of place on the streets of Domino, surrounded by smaller, rounder vehicles. The car barely seemed to fit in the parking space, it's large, angular tail end hanging just inches over the white line painted on the street. It was black, and shiny, and well-cared for.

And it was enormous.

The word _Charger_ had been carefully scrolled in a pretty cursive on the front of the vehicle. I approached cautiously, wondering at the weight as I pulled door open. The car really seemed to be solid metal, which made a strange contrast with the abundant plastic I was used to experiencing.

It was a relic.

The cabin was unnecessarily large. I fought the urge to kick my legs, not quite accustomed to this outrageous amount of space. The radio was archaic looking and the dials tucked behind the massive steering wheel looked like they would be more comfortable attached to a jet plane.

He turned the key in the ignition as I slipped inside. The engine roared to life, seeming louder and closer despite the increased distance, and I jumped, genuinely afraid for a second.

"Jesus," he rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me you've never seen American muscle." He flexed for good measure.

I gaped at him awkwardly, unsure if he was referring to the car or himself. I reached for a seatbelt that wasn't there, and instead folded my hands timidly in my lap, fighting a bout of self-loathing.

I was rapidly turning into Ryou.

"I've got a lot to teach you, Blue." I huffed inwardly, not particularly surprised my relatively easy name had already proven to be too much for him. He tugged at a tuft of my cobalt locks, the undeserved pride of his tiny bit of wit written all over his idiotic grin.

The American, as it turned out, was my kind of people. He was selfish and rash and exciting—a scumbag, if you will, but a fun scumbag, that didn't ask too many questions when he was needed.

I couldn't calm the thrill as the powerful machine tore away, leaving the arena, the city, and the voice rapidly behind me.

That was the start of my shaky and short-lived friendship with Bandit Keith Howard.


	7. 07

Keith had been barking for what seemed like hours about the cars, and cars in general, and American cars, and cars _in_ America, and Duel Monster Cars, and the Intercontinental Duel Championship (he always found a clever path to twist around back in that direction), but it wasn't wholly unpleasant.

I found that the man liked to hear himself talk more than he liked to be heard, and so an absent nod or a, "yeah," here and there seemed to placate him. I, on the other hand, didn't particularly care to hear, and so it created a fantastic arrangement.

We arrived quickly before the functional little Ikea-catalog apartment Ryou and I called home. Keith waited expectantly, shutting up for the first time since I'd met him.

I fumbled for some sort of gratitude, but found I had nothing to offer.

The only thing I could think to say was, "Do you really have a gun?"

A big guffawing laugh filled the cabin. He seemed torn for a minute between trying to put me in a headlock or kiss me. "You're all right," he decided, finally.

I blinked, startled that I had somehow chosen the right thing to say.

He barreled onward, ignoring my query entirely, "I'll be back at the arena tomorrow."

"Yeah," I answered the unspoken invitation. "Sure. I'll see if I can get back to Domino tomorrow without getting jumped."

He grinned.

I grinned back.

It felt normal for a second.

And then there was a crash outside. I looked out the car window at a funhouse mirror of my own shocked expression. Ryou was standing on the sidewalk, backpack hanging from one arm, half of a ripped bag of groceries dangling from the other. The container of milk had exploded on the sidewalk; although the boy seemed oblivious to this.

Ryou's face was quickly growing from shocked to angry. I imagine he had noticed at some point during the day that I hadn't actually made it to school. But maybe he was too focused on the image of his sister, sitting in this monstrous car next to this significantly older man…

"Shit," I muttered under my breath. I heard the lock clink inside the door as I stepped outward, offering a high pitched, "Tomorrow," and a too-cutesy wave.

"Ama—"

But I managed to cut it short, dropping to the ground to quickly clean up the produce that was escaping down the sidewalk. To my everlasting credit, I did not flinch at the sound of the tires screeching away or the engine roaring down the street behind me.

"What a mess you've made," I chided, unshaken.

"Aman—"

He tried again, but I intercepted once more, "Aren't you even going to help me?" I plucked the bag out of his hands and began jamming items into it. I think I broke a few eggs in the process.

" _Amane_ ," he finally managed.

I stopped, resting the bag I'd been holding on the ground as I folded my hands demurely in my lap. "Yes?"

Where manners and a soft-spoken word seemed to work wonders with others, it only seemed to incite my brother. It was probably because he knew it was not genuine and only found it mocking. To be fair, I only really did it because I knew how much it riled him.

"Do you know who that _was?_ " He pointed a finger to the road as if he were disciplining a dog.

"The Intergalactic Dice Champion," I preened, daring a smirk up from under my bangs.

Ryou sputtered in rage for a few moments. Where I had found little interest in the game, Ryou was mildly obsessed. Ryou became mildly obsessed with most escapist, fantasy-type games, but Duel Monsters had hit hard.

"The Intercontinental Duel Champion!" he all but screamed.

I stood and stared at him blankly, cradling the remnants of the bag to my chest.

He seemed to finally realize he'd been played. He mentally backtracked and quickly remembered the root of his frustration.

"And where were you today?"

I shrugged.

"You ditched all day and went to the Kaiba Corp arena without me," he accused. A new thought blossomed across his face before he had finished the first. "How do you even _know_ that guy? And where did that uniform come from?"

I shrugged again.

He stared at me for a long moment, caught between the roles of sibling and parent.

"You're lucky Father isn't home," he announced finally and turned back towards the building, leaving me to struggle with his groceries alone.

It was a hard climb up the stairs to the third story apartment. A few brave grapes didn't make the journey, resting in squishy, unmarked graves at the bottom of the cement steps. Ryou didn't answer the door after a series of pleading knocks and so I struggled to balance all of the groceries between myself and the door so I'd have enough hands to fiddle with the door knob. It was a very careful balance of pressure between not crushing the fruit and not letting the door burst open.

It hadn't been a particularly careful day.

The groceries dropped to the floor once more and I huffed, irritably. The apartment was fairly dark and Ryou was propped up sideways on the couch. He glanced at me only for a second before returning his attention to the television. "Oh, hey," he muttered as if we had not seen each other outside.

"Are you going to pick up any of this shit?" I cried, exasperated.

He glanced over the back of the couch towards my feet where the bruised produce and smashed loaf of bread sat on the floor—as if he needed to check and see what I was talking about. "Nah," he decided and turned away again.

I muffled a scream, vaguely aware that my brother was pushing my buttons in the same fashion I pushed his.

It wasn't that Ryou and I didn't love each other. We did. It wasn't even that Ryou and I didn't get along. We really did quite well.

Ryou and I had just been fighting since before we'd been born. We'd been kicking each other in the womb. This constant state of aggression between us was a benign normalcy we'd both adopted. There was a pause in all of the normal human rules for only our sibling.

And that's why it was okay when I called him a, "Lazy twit."

I left the groceries behind us on the floor and flopped down on the far side of the couch, next to his feet.

He glanced backwards again, "You know you're picking that up, right?"

"I know," I mumbled, dejectedly.

"Well," he puffed out his chest, sitting upright, "so long as you know."

I crossed my legs in front of me and folded forward with my chin balanced on my interlocked fingers. I was facing him, not the television.

He sighed, "Well, then let's have it."

"Have what?" I asked tiredly.

He pinched my nose obnoxiously, "Your day, _little_ sister. Where have you been?"

I batted his hand away and resisted the urge to jump at the name. Three minutes hardly qualified _little_ , but that was not the hill I would die on. I glanced behind us to the vinyl walkway. A pear was still wobbling there on the floor.

And I told him.


	8. 08

My story had been carefully crafted, but Ryou had seen through the few holes pretty well despite this.

I didn't bother to lie about missing class. This was a common occurrence for me and was regarded as tolerable so long as Father didn't catch wind. Ryou had a grand time playing superior, but didn't actually have the patience to enforce most of our father's rules.

He eyed me skeptically as I breezed past my motives for heading down to Domino, but didn't raise any protests. Ryou had come to collect me from the police station on more than one occasion and was no stranger to my less than savory pastimes. However, he raised no comment and so I offered no explanation.

I twisted the story of the nameless bum who had accosted me and totally omitted his grisly fate. I opted, instead, to tell Ryou I had run away, rather than admitting to possibly having committed murder.

I don't know. It didn't quite seem like the time.

I explained the strange, fever-like dream of the grave and the desert. I told him about the white-haired man, and the shack with the skull in the corner, and the uneasy sense of danger the whole experience had left me with. I tried to bring some sanity to the image of the Ring pointing at the boy at the arena. I painted the American as the knight in shining armor, who had offered to return me to my castle. I suppose he had been, in a sense.

Ryou listened carefully the entire time, appraising each word I chose. He glanced down at the Ring dangling from my chest from time to time. Having the same appearance of _knowing_ but not _understanding_ that the boy at the arena had.

With visible effort, he pushed the feelings aside. "That thing is just bad luck is all," he announced. "You should get rid of it."

I swallowed, feeling a heat rising where the metal touched my chest. "It was Mother's. I can't do that."

"Yeah, well," he huffed, pushing himself up off the couch to collect the scattered items I'd left on the floor, "so were the curtains."

" _Ryou!"_ I scolded. "How can you be so cold?"

He stopped where he was crouched on the floor and looked me squarely in the eye. "We both know where you should have left it."

I gawked in horror. A lot of things were overlooked in the Bakura household: our Father's absence, my suffering grades, Ryou's weird hobbies, but one rule was always observed. You did not _—_ I mean, _did not—_ speak about Mother's death. I looked around hurriedly, expecting an alarm to sound or Father to bolt up from the other side of the armchair.

Neither happened.

"You know I'm right," he prodded, carrying the items he had collected towards the kitchen. His monotone voice was soft and unassuming. He acted as though we were only discussing the weather.

"I _do not_!" I cried impetuously, stomping my way around the corner to follow him. "Why does it bother you so much?" I demanded.

Ryou did not turn around. He continued to arrange things in the cupboards and nonchalantly retorted, " _You're_ the one having nightmares."

I fought the urge to stomp like a child. I had a goddamn right to nightmares after the day I'd had, but he couldn't know that. There was a long-standing repulsion between Ryou and the Ring. He didn't voice it very often and when he did I wasn't sure if it was just to aggravate me or due to any real concern.

"I just don't like it, okay?" he finally offered as a peace treaty. He closed the cupboard door and turned to me. "It's unhealthy the way you cling to it. She's not in there, you know." It was all very matter of fact for him. Or at least, that was the way he wanted it to appear.

"How would you know where she is?" I returned snidely, hackles rising in fear and anguish at this forbidden topic.

Ryou glanced over at the clock, watching the minutes tick away. This had gone too far, he knew. He'd broken the rules. "I just don't like it," he insisted again, trying to nail the coffin shut again.

"There's something you're not telling me," I all but growled between clenched teeth.

He smiled, big, and wide, and genuine. His brown eyes sparkled with the warmth of it. He did seem a bit wiser in that moment, if not older, and so I could not fight the slight that followed; "There's something you're not telling me, either, _little_ sister."

My teeth lost their grip at this realization and my face softened into a frown that might have been taken for a pout.

"Go to sleep," he ordered, pressing the back of his hand to my forehead. "You're either crazy or drugged; I haven't decided which is worse."

I opened my mouth to retort, but found nothing of consequence on the other side. I closed it just as quickly.

"Love you," I spat like an insult, spinning on my heel.

"Likewise," he offered with a sad shake of his head.

And it was true.

He did.


	9. 09

My bed was an atrocity—a lumpy, ugly old thing. It was covered in faded pink blankets that felt like they belonged to another girl. It was always too hot and there was never a good place to lay. I was used to waking impatiently in the night and flinging the blankets across the room or having a minor night brawl with my awful pillow.

So, I wasn't especially surprised when I twitched awake, scraping and thrashing like an angry toddler. I whipped a haphazard elbow forward, huffing with a childish whine.

And then coughed, sputtering.

I blinked rapidly and spit viciously as I scrambled up on my hands and knees. I squinted, watching as specs of dirt flew from my mouth. They soundlessly skittered off the ground beneath my spread fingers, bouncing off the wall of earth in front of them in the moonlight.

My vision veered sharply upward and caught the strange and familiar sight of the night sky framed in a rectangle of dirt and grassroots.

I choked again but not on the dirt. An exasperated scream was caught in my throat. My lizard brain had finally awoken, sleep-deprived and drained from the impossible day it had endured. It could endure no more.

But it would have to.

Because I was back in the hole.

I pressed my hand to the high wall, feeling the place where I had climbed through earlier that day. My hand unconsciously curled into a fist, slowly clawing a chunk of the wall away as I drug my fingers through it, pulling myself to my feet.

I did scream this time. I screamed loud, and long, and from the very bottom of my chest. I recalled having heard similar sounds in a zoo.

There was a swish of air and an impossibly musical thud.

I turned my head in time to see him still crouched there, just landed. A plain piece of cloth covered his hair, adorned with as much gold as the rest of him, but this did nothing to conceal his identity. He clenched a malicious looking weapon in his right fist, the blade pointed outwards.

The baubles swayed and clinked, twinkling almost as brightly as the stars.

I should have been terrified, but my lizard brain had not yet developed this word. It fed on the fear in my blood and left only the adrenaline and confusion behind. Combined, they made a strange concoction of rage.

The man was rising, uncurling like a tired jaguar. Dark eyes flashed in the dim light, recognizing me for the first time. "Shh," he suddenly soothed, but I only heard the hiss of a snake. He raised his free palm out to me, but I still only saw the jaguar.

So I pulled my knee inward and kicked him squarely in the chest as hard as I could.

The man wasn't fully upright and the force of the blow had been enough to set him off balance. He tumbled backwards, gripping the knife deftly all the while. He kept rolling backwards, raising his hips, trying to get enough leverage to rock forward onto his feet again, but I was already rocketing forward with as much momentum as I could muster in the tiny, enclosed space.

I landed on his bare chest, digging an elbow into his ribs. I felt the air press up and out of his lungs and heard it wheeze out of his mouth in an, "Oof!" Quickly, I maneuvered my knees up towards his face, trying my best to pin my weight near his shoulders.

I'd grown up with a twin brother; this wasn't my first wrestling match.

He huffed out an enraged growl, struggling to grab at my side with his free arm and push me away. I quickly wrapped both hands around the fist that was holding the knife, trying to pry the fingers away, but to no avail. The man bucked wildly, grappling at my oversized nightshirt, tearing the collar to stretch down over my shoulder, but I managed to hold my place.

And so there we sat for what felt like an eternity, grunting and almost cursing, vying for control of the knife, until my lizard brain gave one last shrill battle-cry.

 _Bite him_ , it shrieked, and then quietly went to sleep.

I recall thinking it strange, just before I sunk my teeth into the back of his hand, that he was pulling the blade away and not _towards_ me.

He howled, deep and guttural, and some extra reserve of strength or last bit of self-control broke within him. His fingers finally made contact with my chest, pushing with a bruising pressure. I flung backwards and my head snapped against the far dirt wall none too kindly.

"You little _shit,_ " he hissed, standing and pulling his sleeve around the injured hand.

I stayed on the ground, tasting blood in my mouth. It wasn't much, but the realization made me suddenly nauseous. I ignored it and held my ground, looking up with rabid, raccoon eyes.

He took a half step towards me, brandishing the hilt of the knife as if he might stab me with that instead, but moved no further.

At least, I thought, I was already in a grave.

"We need to talk," he finally barked, but then turned away.

I watched him, puzzled, and ran the back of my hand across my mouth. I could feel the streak of red paint up my arm in the dark.

"But _you_ ," he annunciated this with another jab of the hilt, suddenly turning towards me again, "can climb out your goddamn self."

And with that he flipped the blade around in his fingertips with surgical precision and buried it in the dirt wall with an unnecessary amount of force that rippled up the muscles in his arm. He looked at me once, almost taunting, and then, using the knife as leverage, began to haul himself up towards the stars.

I stared up after him for a moment, trying to process what I had just dreamed or thought or done. The grass lining the opening of the grave waved invitingly. My body screamed in fatigue.

But it was no use; the only place to go was up.

Reluctantly, I stood. I plucked at my nightshirt, attempting to make myself somewhat decent. The fabric sagged sadly, swooping too low and baring both shoulders to the frigid night air. It looked as worn and battered as I felt.

I heaved and enormous sigh and scrambled to trace his footprints.


	10. 10

I fared better this time, managing to scramble up in sheer aggravated rage when my handholds caved in. I reached the top without falling once and clawed my way to the grass like a kitten testing its nails.

The wind whipped around my hair as I rose to my feet and I rocked with it—heady with my own warped pride. I had not died and now I imagined myself invincible, but my body shook with an unbidden chill belying my weakness.

The weather had not improved much here.

Ahead in the darkness a fire glowed steadily, the flames undeterred by motion. The moon cast long shadows among slowly shifting dunes, painting a strangely geometric-looking horizon.

It was a campfire, I realized abruptly. A cloth was lying next to the brick, half covered in sand with a pile of sticks piled on top of it. I couldn't imagine where they'd come from, but the tracks where they'd been drug in the sand climbed far into the hills.

He was storming ahead of me. His red coat whipped in the wind angrily, billowing out his sleeves to make him appear larger than he was. His lifeless hair beat relentlessly across his face as he turned towards me, drawing my attention again to the vicious scar across his eye.

Still, something about him seemed _anxious_.

I paused, waiting for the chiding thought to strike me, but my mind was oddly quiet here.

"Hurry up," he ordered, eager to be back on the other side for some strange reason. "Your heart is fucking _unbearable._ "

" _Your_ heart is a fucking desert," I spat back at him.

He turned and continued to stomp.

The words _heart_ rang in my ears, blaring in the wind, but I continued to plod on as well after a moment.

I watched quietly as he hesitated at the border, pushing forward with only a small wince. I crossed into the sand with as much resistance as walking through a revolving door. It was still a bizarre sensation.

It was colder between the dunes than it had been during the day, but still significantly warmer than the icy night we had left behind. The stillness of the air and the closeness of the fire soothed me.

He had flopped down moodily into the sand next to the flames, folded tellingly close to the heat. It disturbed him to be cold, I noticed idly.

"Why couldn't you cross?" I asked abruptly, pointing down at the line where the sand overtook the grass, blades bending under the weight of the scattered grains.

" _What?_ " he hissed angrily.

"The footprints," I answered plainly. "They came to the border and then went off that way." I pointed into the hills. "Why couldn't you cross the border?"

He looked up at me for the first time, shooting me a glare as if I were the stupidest creature he'd ever seen.

"You said 'Do you hear me now?' too," I repeated, taping a thoughtful finger to my mouth. My pitch was raising dangerously high as the line of inquiry continued, "Have you tried to speak to me before?"

The same tired glare adorned his face, unmoving.

I settled myself on the other side of the fire, digging my haunches into the sand like a hen trying to nest. "You know," I huffed, "for someone who needed to _talk_ you aren't very talkative."

I thought I could make out him glowering through the flames that separated us.

He could suit himself, I thought. I, on the other hand, had just finished a rather bad day to start a rather bad night. My mind clambered rapidly over the holes in the version I'd given to my brother, jumping with an excited _splash_ into each one; I was the equivalent of a dog who'd been let outside. Each thought came aloud.

"What was wrong with the Ring and those boys?" I blurted.

"And is that you always talking when I'm thinking? It's so rude," I charged on.

And then my mind stopped, hesitating around a particularly deep spot. The terrain here was dangerous, but in we went.

" _My God,_ " I whispered, both hands flying to my face, " _that man. What_ did you _do_ to that _man?_ " My eyes flew to his face and I rocked backwards onto my heels, half ready to run and half ready to bare down screaming. "Was _that_ you?"

The silence terrified me and I did rise to my feet. His eyes looked blood red in the light of the fire and followed my every move. His hands were clenching into fists, causing red to surface on the makeshift bandage he had wrapped about his wound.

 _My_ wound, I gloated mentally. The satisfaction leaked out of my mouth, "We need to talk!"

"We're not alone here," he breathed. It was trapped somewhere between a warning and a threat, and I couldn't distinguish which. The man looked dangerous; I was leaning towards the latter.

"I want to know what the fuck is going on here!" I shrieked.

"In _my_ head," I added as an afterthought.

"This was a mistake," he decided, climbing to his feet. "This was a huge mistake," he thought aloud again. He was walking off towards the hills—the same path I had taken earlier today.

He didn't even look at me as he left, and the slight hit hard. My revulsion and fear were breeding with my satisfaction. Puffs of indignant rage huffed out from my lungs. " _You're_ not the only one who lives here!" I screamed.

He didn't even turn around. "Then go and sleep in your _grave_."

The shock of the word came more from hearing it aloud then the connotations of the place I kept awaking in. It struck my bones like a sheet of ice and my vision went white with fury.

And it cleared only slightly, the blurry picture of a small boy running ahead of me materializing out of the white, still leaking onto his stark hair. His dress was a roughly woven tunic and soft-looking leather shoes. His tiny feet pattered down familiar looking stone steps. There was an air of mischief about him; he was bound to be trouble. A voice behind me recognized this and called, " _Bakura! E_ ud iilaa huna _!"_ in an unmistakable motherly tone.

I blinked and it was gone.

The same white head was disappearing ahead of me, fleeing further away into the darkness of the night.

" _Bakura! Get back here!"_ I called, my cadence identical.

He stopped dead in his tracks.

His face was murder when he finally turned and for the first time since the subway I was genuinely afraid. His stance was absolutely predatory and his teeth gnashed together in barely restrained wrath. His youth flashed brilliantly in this fit and I noticed for the first time how young he really was.

The name— _my name_ —had all but undone him. Here he stood in the moonlight, damn near foaming at the mouth like a werewolf.

We stayed like that for a long moment—him, paused for the strike like a lion in the grass and, me, bolt upright and ready to run like a gazelle. But for some reason, he grew tired and turned—slowly, very slowly—to retreat to his den. He didn't stomp this time, but paced solemnly through the sands, his coat dragging a trail behind him.

The word had meant something. The word had shook him.

This was a two-way street.


	11. 11

I did as he suggested and I spent my night in the grave. I stood by the fire for only a moment before the bitter silence of the desert shook me to my core. At least in the graveyard, there was the wind to howl, but here the absence of chirping, and rustling, and natural sound made me uneasy.

It was easier to ignore in the hole, I decided.

It wasn't a terrible drop, but I managed to knock my head on my way down, and was forced to retreat dizzily to the closest wall. It was colder than I had imagined and it wasn't long before I found myself curled upright with my face smashed in the corner. I burrowed almost a whole new hole in the wall, trying to conserve body warmth. Dirt caved in from above more than once and I tossed fitfully in the night as the specs pattered onto my neck and arms.

I awoke fitfully hot and immediately assumed I was dying of hypothermia.

That was a symptom. I congratulated myself for remembering mentally, rubbing the dirt from my eyes.

A blur of white was focusing ahead of me and my heart jumped to my throat. _He had come back for me,_ I marveled. Maybe he had just come back to watch me die of hypothermia, I reasoned soundly, nodding at my own idiocy.

"You're so _weird,"_ my brother's voice rang out, managing to sound more sorry for himself than his poor, addled sister.

My vision snapped sharply at the sound and I realized I was not staring at _Bakura;_ I was staring at Ryou. The similarity provoked a strange unsettled feeling in my chest that added to the confusion of the situation.

The faded pink blankets were twisted over my head in a makeshift hood and I was propped upright against the headboard, trying to burrow through the wood. My lumpy pillow sat beneath me, making my posture titled and crooked; my back would ache all day.

I blinked again and Ryou had moved to the door. He was halfway done buttoning his uniform blazer, looking at me with impatient irritation. " _Do_ get your shit together, Amane," he encouraged. "We're going to be late."

With an anguished groan, I pulled the blankets further down over my eyes and promptly smashed my forehead into the headboard once, twice, three times for good measure. Perhaps, I reasoned, if I knocked myself unconscious, my body might actually _rest_ and—better yet—Ryou couldn't drag me to the torture chamber more commonly referred to as "high school".

"Today, please," he chimed again from someplace beyond the door and I reluctantly began about the business of painting my face to look like a person and not a zombie.

I would simply lose him at the subway, I consoled myself. It wasn't so hard. And I _had_ promised to make an appearance.

This was easy, I reassured, following Ryou dutifully out of the front door and up the quickly crowding street.

The entrance way to the station seemed inviting, even leading downward to the darkness. This was familiar.

This was something I could do.

 _The fuck it is._

And I jumped at the voice. He was there. He was listening. My mind raced demanding questions, but all went unanswered.

He had retreated immediately and I began to doubt if he ever had meant for me to hear this at all. Surely, he had spoken to me before. The line where the sand met the grass was blurred, and dirty, and hard to see, but it was _there_. There was a point where _I_ stopped being _me_ and _he_ started being _him_. Some of the chiding thoughts I was prone to must have been his, some of the snarky quips, some of the panicked warnings.

 _"Get off of the car,"_ I wondered.

"What?" Ryou muttered, hardly glancing at me from his place inside the subway car. He was too busy staring at the world blurring by outside the window. One hand held a grip swaying from the ceiling and my backpack dangled from the other.

I had spoken aloud, I realized.

I blinked again. We had somehow boarded the subway as well during what had rapidly devolved to a monologue.

Waking in the subway startled me, and I glanced hurriedly around, making sure everything was in order. The train was full, rocketing towards the city center. No hobos in sight. No hearts on the ground.

Ryou glanced sideways again, holding the stare only just until my eyes darted back around to meet his. A strange moment of understanding passed between us. We had spent so long as the other's only companion, perhaps we knew how to read expressions too well. Perhaps it was something more.

Either way, Ryou shifted his weight and he extended his arm to me, offering the backpack. "Carry your own things, Amane," he admonished in a mockingly parental tone.

Ryou had smelled my fear like a wolf.

I frowned and reached to take the bag from him, but he gave a small tug as I clasped hold of the strap, guiding me to stand behind him. He was trying to protect me—from what, I didn't know. _He_ didn't know.

"Hang onto the bar," was all he said, "before you trip over and crack your head open."

I normally would have had some childish comeback, but my mind was overtired and the strange hallucination that was responsible for my sarcasm was peevishly silent.

I took hold of the bar.

"God knows Father will blame me," he huffed.

Ryou liked to act this way when he was trying to be nice. It was the easiest way to deny actually being fond of his insufferable little sister.

But it was comfortable to stand behind him and know that if some strange assailant came from the car or from within, Ryou would handle the situation with the same level-headed protocol and politeness as he would use for a school bully or an angry teacher. Amidst the mental silence and the external calmness, I finally felt restful for the first time in what seemed like days.

My brother was here to protect me.

Desert be damned. Grave be damned. Heart be damned.

I swayed and rocked, lulled by the motions of the train. I stayed like this until the brakes puffed and inertia made a sharp pull at me from behind. A pleasant chime sounded, accompanied by a dissonant, scratchy female voice: "Nagata Station."

People were shifting to the doors as the car began to slow and gravity regained its normalcy. Ryou was moving to join them.

I reached out and grabbed a strap on his backpack.

He looked down at me, stuck somewhere between a glare and rolling his eyes.

"Let's not go," I suggested, sounding more pleading that I would have liked.

"You didn't go yesterday," he responded evenly and returned his gaze to the doors which were now sliding quickly open.

"Let's not go," I repeated.

He looked down again, unconvinced.

"We can go to the Kaiba Center," I bargained. "We can play your stupid card game."

His frown deepened at the word "stupid" and he turned to leave.

"You can play the Intermediary Deck Champion!" I burst out, half forgetting the title and half attempting to be infuriating. "He'll do it if I ask," I dared. "You know he will. No lines."

The doors chimed again in warning.

Ryou hesitated. "No lines?"

They were sliding closed. The last few stragglers were trying to hop through.

"No lines," I guaranteed.

He shifted again, re-shouldering his backpack, gripping the strap with both hands. He was still looking at the doors, beginning to realize he had bartered too long. We wouldn't make this exit. We could walk from the next stop or catch a train back the other way, but how long would that take? We'd be plenty late.

I couldn't help the Grinch-like grin from spreading across my face.

"You're _going_ tomorrow, Amane," he ordered, pointing a scolding finger in my face. He'd been outplayed and he was sore about it. My self-satisfied smile wasn't making matters much better, but he had a bit of giddiness about him. After all, it wasn't often Ryou acted the teenager. And this was the Interstellar Drool Champion we were going to see, after all.

I bit my lip hard.

The fuck I _couldn't_ do this, I thought to myself. Loudly.

The responding annoyance was palpable.


End file.
